Originally Posted by
Taiwaned
There are lots of medicine that is illegal in Japan, my wife's Tylenol 3 with codeine is illegal however if you carry a reasonable amount the custom officer at the airport ignores it.
When you state that the custom officer ignores it when they see Tylenol#3, did you have a firsthand experience that you're basing this on? Did you declare your Tyl#3 and the officer let you through? Or did you not declare it, and you had a bag search that turned up Tyl#3 and yet the officer looked the other way? If it's the latter, I would find it surprising in Jpn.
Originally Posted by
Taiwaned
The executive was STUPID in trying to UPS the oxy and declaring it as a necklace.
I dunno. I still feel bad for her. I'm not going to berate people for trying to sneak stuff in that they genuinely believe are benign things... like prescription meds, certain banned food items, etc. But there is a small chance of getting caught, so it's taking a risk. And they have to recognize that the penalty could be stiff, potentially much stiffer in Jpn for certain things than one could ever imagine in US.
Originally Posted by
mkjr
It was only when I had to go to Singapore for work that I considered whether common meds I take could be an issue. Is oxy really the only pain med on the market? Was there nothing the person could get locally?
So many prescription & OTC meds that are considered very benign in US are things for which you technically have to obtain permission to bring into Jpn ("technically" being the operative word). Trazodone, Robitussin AC, Sudafed, Provigil, etc. Personally, I hope Jpn eases up on this. With regards to pain meds... there're folks with chronic pain who don't get any response to APAP or NSAID's. And there're chronic pain pts who can only tolerate certain types of opioids (eg, tolerates oxy, but side effects to hydrocodone and codeine).